Community High School

Spicin’ Up Future Stars

Standing on a stage, in front of hundreds of people, including numerous friends and family members, is a girl who doesn’t know if she is going to win.  She knows that she did an amazing thing a few minutes ago, but is it really enough?  Is it enough to win Future Stars 2008?

She stands with four other finalists, who all have the chance to be crowned Future Star champion.

The judges are deliberating.  The crowd is chanting numerous names, one of which is hers.

“Sonya! Sonya! Sonya!” they chant.

Future Stars is the Pioneer Theatre Guild’s imitation of the hit Fox TV show American Idol.  At the beginning of the competition, Sonya Major, a junior at Community High School, only had one goal: to reach the finals. She didn’t know if it was possible, but she thought it was definitely worth a shot.

The semi-finals were where it all began.  She had four chances to beat out 28 other contestants in order to advance to the finals.

After not getting into the finals on the first night, Major refused to lose hope.  She still believed that she was going to make the finals.

On the last day of the semi-finals, Major had an unbelievable night: she got into the finals, for two songs.

It was finals night, and Major couldn’t have been more happy.  She had reached her goal.  What she didn’t know was that it was about to get a whole lot better.

When Major was out on the stage in the semi-finals, she wasn’t thinking about the competition.  She sang like no one else was there, like the theater was empty. It was just the music and her.

“I kind of forget it’s a competition until I turn around and the judges start talking,” Major said.

Before it was time for the concert to start, Major admitted that she was a little nervous and didn’t really know what was going to happen out on stage, but was “pumped” to just be in the finals.

Major’s first song was with a group of girls who did a rendition of the Spice Girls’ song “If You Wanna Be My Lover.”

Major was “Sporty Spice” and represented her well, garnering huge cheers and amazing reviews from the judges.  Major was joined by the other “Spice Girls”: Posh Spice (Ashley Park), Sporty Spice (Olivia Bassett-Kennedy), Baby Spice (Rachel Mann), and Ginger Spice (Olivia Songer).  All of them came together to give a thrilling performance.

But that song was not what Major was the most excited for.  Her song was coming up—the song that she hoped would earn her a Future Star crown.

Although she was really nervous, Sonya was excited and anxious more than anything.

As Major and her backup singers were about to go on stage, they all leaned in, as if they were in a football huddle, and Major said to them all: “Let’s Dixie Chick this.”

She got out onto that stage and let everything go.  Her performance in front of more than two hundred people was unbelievable.  And just her luck, it was the last performance of the night, the performance that would stick in the judges’ minds the most.

Major performed the song “Not Ready to Make Nice,” by the Dixie Chicks.  After she finished the crowd went crazy.

Everyone was rooting for her, standing up in awe of how wonderful she sounded.

There she stood, along with four other contestants, waiting for her name to be read by the hosts as the winner.

The hosts took one big last breath before they read the winner on the envelope they were holding.

“DOROTHY YARRINGTON!” the hosts screamed in the microphone.

Yarrington, a senior at Pioneer High School, went into this competition as a student favorite to win it all.  To go along with her very strong singing performance, Dorothy also had a fan section that outnumbered all the other contestants’ sections, both of which heavily contributed to her victory.

But you would think that after getting to the finals and being one of five final people being considered to win the whole competition, Major would be at least a little upset about not winning. But she was not upset, not even a little bit.  She was just happy to be in the finals, and even more happy to be in the final five people to be considered crowned Future Stars Champion.

Walking out into the hallways of Pioneer High School, you could not tell whether she had won or not.  She was smiling uncontrollably and hugging everyone she knew in an energetic way that gave the impression that she had just won the lottery.

But Major didn’t win Future Stars 2008.  Instead of being crowned Future Star 2008, she was crowned by her own friends and family the most amazing singer that they had heard.

Standing in front of more than a hundred of friends and family, Sonya Major couldn’t hold back a smile.  A smile that said: “I was just in the finals!”

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